IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013

ISSN: 2320 - 8791

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Performance Analysis of 3GPP LTE

Francis Enyi1, Chiadika Mario2, Ekoko Ujerekre3, Ifezulike N. Florence4, Kingsley Asuquo Charles5

1
Computer Science Department, Delta State Polytechnic,
Ogwashi-uku, Delta state, Nigeria
2,3
Computer Engineering Department, Delta State Polytechnic,
Ogwashi-uku, Delta state, Nigeria.
4
ICT Unit, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital,
Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria.
5
Information Systems Engineering Department, Cyprus International University,
Nicosia, TRNC

Abstract:
One of the key concerns in identifying the
technological innovation to involve in LTE, is the
trade‐off between cost of performance and genuine
advantages. The 3GPP LTE is a new standard with
commendable performance targets, therefore it is
necessary and urgent to evaluate the performance
and quality of this new system at an initial phase in
order to promote its smooth and cost-efficient
introduction and implementation. This work
therefore aims at evaluating the performance of
LTE Downlink with different MIMO antenna
configuration and techniques under different
channel conditions and this evaluation is based on
performance metric such as BER against SNR.
Keywords: 3GPP LTE, BER, MIMO, OFDMA,
SCFDMA.
1. Introduction
Long Term Evolution (LTE) of the Universal
Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is a
clear move in the field of mobile communications.
It was necessitated by the constant increase in
demand for high speed connections on networks,
delay, low error rates and resilience because
modern users and network applications have
become increasingly dependent on these
requirements for efficient functionality and
performance. Third Generation Partnership Project
Long Term Evolution (3GPP LTE) promises high
peak data rates for both downlink and uplink
transmission, spectral efficiency, low delay and
latency, low bit error rates, to mention but a few.
LTE leverages on a number of technologies namely
MIMO antennas, Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) and Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) at the
downlink, Single Carrier Frequency Division
Multiple Access (SCFDMA) at the uplink, support
for Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (16QAM), and
64QAM.
During the last several years along with ongoing
development of systems and devices technology
and the globalization of 3rd Generation of Mobile
Communication Systems, the support for voice and
data services have encountered a greater
development compared to 2nd Generation Systems.
At the same time the requirements for high quality
wireless communications with higher data rates
increased owing to users demands. On the other
hand, the conflict of limited bandwidth resources
and rapidly growing numbers of users becomes
exceptional, so the spectrum efficiency of system
should be improved by adopting some advanced
technologies. It has been confirmed in both concept
and practice that some novel technologies such as
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) and multiple input, multiple output
(MIMO) systems, can improve the performance of
the current wireless communication systems. The
high data rates and the high capacity can be
attained by using the advantages of the two
technologies. From a standardization viewpoint 3G
era is now well innovative. While upgrades
continue to be made to make use of the highest
possible performance from currently implemented
systems, there is a limit to the level to which
further upgrades will be effective. If the only
purpose were to provide excellent performance,
then this in itself would be relatively easy to
achieve. The added complexity is that such
excellent performance must be delivered through
systems which are cheaper from installation and
maintenance prospect. Users have experienced an
amazing reduction in telecoms expenses and they
now predict receiving better high quality
communication solutions at low prices. Therefore,
in determining the following standardization phase,
there must be a double approach; in search of
significant performance improvement but at a low
cost. Long Term Evolution (LTE) is that next phase
and will be the basis on which future mobile
telecoms systems will be built. LTE is the first

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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
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cellular communication system enhanced from the
beginning to support packet‐switched data services,
within which packetized voice devices are just one
part. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP) started work on Long Term Evolution in
2004 with the description of targets and it is
defined in its specifications [1].
The specifications associated to LTE are formally
identified as the evolved UMTS terrestrial radio
access network (E‐UTRAN) and the evolved
UMTS terrestrial radio access (E‐UTRA). These
are jointly known as LTE. In December 2008,
release of LTE was approved by 3GPP which
allowed network operators to appreciate their
deployment plans in implementing this technology.
A few motivating factors can be identified in
advancing LTE development; enhancements in
wire line capability, the requirement for added
wireless capacity, the need for provision of wireless
data services at lower costs and the competition to
the existing wireless technologies. In addition to
the continued advancement in wire line
technologies, a similar growth is needed for
technological innovation to work with complete
confidence with described requirements in the
wireless domain. 3GPP technological innovation
must match and go beyond the competition with
other wireless technologies which guarantee high
data capabilities – such as IEEE 802.16. To take
maximum advantage of available spectrum, large
capacity is an important factor. LTE is needed to
offer superior performance compared to High
Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology
according to 3GPP specifications. The 3GPP LTE
release 8 specification describes the basic
performance of a new, high‐performance air
interface providing high user data rates along with
low latency based on MIMO, OFDMA (Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiple Access), and an
Enhanced System Architecture Evolution (SAE) as
main enablers. The LTE solution provides
spectrum flexibility with scalable transmission
bandwidth between 1.4 MHz and 20 MHz
depending on the available spectrum for flexible
radio planning. The 20 MHz bandwidth can
provide up to 150 Mbps downlink user data rate
and 75 Mbps uplink peak data rate with 2 × 2
MIMO, and 300 Mbps with 4 × 4 MIMO[2].
2. LTE at a Glance
LTE is now being implemented and is the way
ahead for high-speed mobile solutions. There has
been a fast improvement in the use of information
carried by mobile services, and this improvement
will only become bigger in what has been known as
“data explosion”. To take care of this and the
improved requirements for improved information
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transmission rates and lower latency, further
growth of mobile technological innovation have
been required.
The UMTS mobile technological innovation update
has been known as LTE – Long Term Evolution.
The concept is that LTE will allow much greater or
higher rates of speed to be obtained along with
much reduced packet latency (an increasing need
by many users these days), and that 3GPP LTE will
allow mobile device services to progress to fulfill
the needs for mobile technological innovation to
2017 and well beyond.
Many service providers have not yet improved or
updated their basic 3G systems and 3GPP LTE is
regarded as the next sensible phase for many
service providers, who will jump directly from the
primary 3G directly to LTE as this will prevent
offering several levels of upgrade. The utilization
of LTE will also offer the information abilities that
will be needed for many decades and until
complete release of the full 4G requirements
known as LTE Advanced is achieved [3].
3. 3G LTE Evolution
Although there are significant phase changes
between LTE and its 3G forerunners, it is
nevertheless seemed upon as a progress of the
UMTS/3GPP 3G requirements. Although it uses a
different way of radio interface, using
OFDMA/SCFDMA instead of CDMA, there are
many resemblances with the previous types of 3G
architecture and there is chance for a great deal of
re-use [4].
LTE can be projected to offer a further
development or progress of performance, enhanced
rates of speed and general enhanced performance.
LTE is an all IP based network, supporting both
IPv4 and IPv6. LTE is concentrating on the best
possible support of Packet Switched (PS) services.
Primary requirements for the design of an LTE
system were determined in the beginning of the
standardization work on LTE [5]
4. Technologies for LTE:
LTE provided a variety of new technologies when
compared to the past mobile systems. They allow
LTE to be able to operate more successfully with
regards to the use of spectrum and also to offer the
much higher data rates that are being required.
Three fundamental technologies have shaped the
LTE radio interface design and are: Multicarrier
Technology, Multiple Antenna Technology
(MIMO) and the application of packet switching to
the radio interface. Lastly, we review the blends of
abilities that are reinforced by different categories
of LTE mobile terminal [3].
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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
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4.1 Multicarrier Technology:
Adopting a multicarrier approach for multiple
access in LTE was the first significant design
choice. After preliminary relief of suggestions, the
candidate schemes for the downlink were
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access
(OFDMA) and Multiple WCDMA, while the
candidate schemes for the uplink were Single
Carrier Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-
FDMA), OFDMA and Multiple WCDMA. The
option of multiple access schemes was created in
December 2005, with OFDMA being chosen for
the downlink and SC-FDMA for the uplink. Both
of these schemes start up the frequency domain as a
new dimension of flexibility in the systems [3].
One of the key components is the use of
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple (OFDM)
as the signal bearer and the associated access
schemes, OFDMA and SC-FDMA [3].
4.2 Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple
(OFDM)
OFDM is used in LTE Downlink by virtue of
simple implementation in receiver and high
performance. In OFDM, Frequency selective wide
band channel is divided into non-frequency
selective narrowband sub-channels that are
orthogonal to each other [3]. Each subcarrier is
modulated based on conventional modulation
schemes such as QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM.
Transmission of a high data rate stream results in
an Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) problem. This
problem arises from the fact that the channel delay
spread is greater than the symbol period when data
is transmitted as a serial stream. To avoid this
problem in OFDM, the serial data stream is
converted to N parallel subcarriers. This conversion
guarantees that the symbol duration is now N times
larger than the channel delay spread and avoids ISI.
The serial-to-parallel block converts serial data to
the N parallel subcarrier. Then subcarriers are
individually modulated. Subcarriers can carry
different data rates since the channel gain can be
different between subcarriers due to the channel
frequency selectivity. The Inverse Fast Fourier
Transform (IFFT) block converts N frequency
domain data symbols to N complex time domain.
One of the key steps in OFDM signal generation is
to add Cyclic Prefix (CP) to avoid ISI. CP is
generated by duplicating the last symbols of IFFT
output and adding them to the beginning of that
symbol. It should be considered that the length
must be longer than the longest supported channel
response. The final step is to convert the IFFT
output symbols to serial data stream to be
transferred through the frequency selective channel.
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At the receiver the inverse process takes place to
obtain ISI free symbols [3].
One of the remarkable disadvantages of OFDM is
high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR).
Amplitude variation of OFDM symbols is high due
to the fact that the time domain OFDM symbols
can be considered as Gaussian waveform.
Therefore, the OFDM signal is distorted from
nonlinear power amplifiers. To eliminate distortion,
power amplifiers need to be operated with larger
operating point that lead to expensive transmitters.
Another significant problem of OFDM is that
OFDM is sensitive to carrier frequency offset and
time- varying channels. Different reference
frequencies used in transmitter and receiver cause
Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI) that contributes to
lose OFDM orthogonality. Components that are
used in the user terminal are cost effective, and the
local crystal in the receiver may have more intense
problems of drifting than the one in the transmitter.
This can cause a Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO)
that may be greater than subcarrier spacing. Even
in cases where transmitter and receiver frequencies
are synchronized, the impact of Doppler can cause
frequency errors [3].
In OFDM All subcarriers at any given time are
received by a single user; however, in OFDMA
subcarriers are received by multiple users
simultaneously, providing a multiuser scheme.
OFDMA can be used with the TDMA (Time
Division Multiple Access) technique, meaning that
a group of subcarriers is assigned to be transmitted
during a specific time period [3]. The main motive
for OFDMA in LTE and some other systems go
down to its better performance in frequency
selective fading channels; low complexity of base-
band receiver; better spectral properties and usage
of so many bandwidths; link adaptation and
frequency domain scheduling; and finally it’s usage
with advanced receiver and antenna technologies.
4.3 Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple
Access (OFDMA) basics
The transmitter concept in any OFDMA system is
to use narrow, mutually orthogonal subcarriers. In
LTE the sub-carrier spacing is 15 kHz regardless of
the total transmission bandwidth. Different sub-
carriers are orthogonal to each other, as at the
sampling instant of only one subcarrier the other
sub-carriers have a zero value. The transmitter of
an OFDMA system uses IFFT block to create the
signal. The data source feeds to the serial-to-
parallel conversion and further to the IFFT block.
Each input for the IFFT block tallies to the input
representing a particular sub-carrier (or particular
frequency component of the time domain signal)
and can be modulated independently of the other
subcarriers.
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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
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Each sub channels can completely be separated by
the FFT at the receiver when there are no ISI and
ICI introduced by channel distortion. Practically
these conditions cannot be obtained. Since the
spectra of an OFDM signal is not strictly band
limited, linear distortion such as multipath fading
cause sub channel to spread energy in the adjacent
channels [4]. This problem can be solved by
increasing symbol duration. One way to prevent ISI
is to create a cyclically extended guard interval,
where each symbol is preceded by a periodic
extension of the signal itself. The main reasons to
use a cyclic prefix for the guard band interval are
[4]:
1. To maintain the receiver carrier
synchronization.
2. Cyclic convolution can still be applied
between the OFDM signal and the channel
response to model the transmission systems.
The use of OFDMA in a base station transmitter is
that users can be assigned generally to any of the
subcarriers in the frequency domain. The
possibility of having different subcarriers to
assigned users allows the scheduler to benefit from
the differences in the frequency domain, this
differences being due to the temporary interference
and fading differences in different parts of the
system bandwidth as allocation is not done on a
single subcarrier but on resource blocks, each made
up of 12 subcarriers, resulting in the minimum
bandwidth allocation being 180 kHz. When the
respective allocation resolution in the time domain
is 1 ms, the downlink transmission resource
allocation means filling the resource shared with
180 kHz blocks at 1 ms resolution.
Due to the use of extra back-off by the signal in
time domain in the amplifier, results in the
reduction of the amplifier power performance or
smaller output power and this causes the uplink
range to be smaller and it consumes the battery
energy quicker due to high amplifier power
consumption. Though it is not an issue for the base
station where the devices are connected to the
mains but for the mobile devices running on their
own battery power, it makes it difficult and
consumes the battery power quick. For this reason,
3GPP made the decision to use OFDMA in the
downlink direction and use the power efficient SC-
FDMA in the uplink direction [6].
4.4 Single-Carrier Frequency-Division
Multiple Access (SC-FDMA)
For the LTE uplink, a different idea is used for the
access technique. Although still using a form of
OFDMA technology, the implementation is known
as Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple
Access (SC-FDMA) [9]. The high Peak-to-Average
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Power Ratio (PAPR) associated with OFDM led
3GPP to look for a different modulation scheme for
the LTE uplink. SC-FDMA was chosen since it
combines the low PAPR techniques of single-
carrier transmission systems, such as GSM and
CDMA, with the multipath resistance and flexible
frequency allocation of OFDMA [7]. Data symbols
in the time domain are converted to the frequency
domain using a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT),
once in the frequency domain; they are mapped to
the desired location in the overall channel
bandwidth before being converted back to the time
domain using an Inverse FFT (IFFT). Finally,
Cyclic Prefix (CP) is inserted. SC-FDMA is
sometimes called Discrete Fourier Transform
Spread OFDM (DFT S-OFDM) because of this
process [7].
4.5 Multiple Antenna Technology (MIMO)
MIMO antenna technology is one of the key
technologies leveraged on by LTE. It is a
technology in which multiple antennas are used at
both the transmitter and at the receiver for
enhanced communication: The use of additional
antenna elements at either the base station
(eNodeB) or User Equipment side (on the uplink
and/or downlink) opens an extra spatial dimension
to signal precoding and detection. Based on the
options and availability of these antennas at the
transmitter and/or receiver, the following
classifications exist [5]:
4.5.1 Single-Input Multiple-Output (SIMO)
A simple scenario of this is an uplink transmission
whereby a multi-antenna base station (eNodeB)
communicates with a single antenna User
Equipment (UE).
4.5.2 Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO)
A downlink transmission whereby a multi-antenna
base station communicates with a single antenna
User Equipment (UE) is a scenario.
4.5.3 Single-User MIMO (SU-MIMO)
This is a point-to-point multiple antenna link
between a base station and one UE.
4.5.4 Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO)
This features several UE‟s communicating
simultaneously with a common base station using
the same frequency- and time-domain resources.
MIMO is only used for the shared channel and only
to transmit those resource blocks assigned to users
that experience very good signal conditions. For
other channels, only a single stream operation with
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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
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a robust modulation and coding is used as the
eNodeB has to ensure that the data transmitted over
those channels can reach all mobile devices
independent of their location and current signal
conditions. Transmitting simultaneous data sources
over the same channel is possible only if the
sources stay mostly separate of each other on the
way from the transmitter to the receiver. This can
be carried out if two simple specifications are met.
On the transmitter side, two or four independent
hardware transmit chains are required to create the
simultaneous data streams. In addition, each data
stream requires its own antenna. For two streams,
two antennas are required. This is done within a
single antenna casing by having one internal
antenna that transmits a vertically polarized signal
while the other antenna is positioned in such a way
as to transmit its signal with a horizontal
polarization. It should be noted at this point that
polarized signals are already used today in other
radio technologies such as UMTS to create
diversity, that is, to improve the reception of a
single signal stream. A MIMO receiver also
requires two or four antennas and two or four
independent reception chains. For small mobile
devices, such as smart phones, this is challenging
because of their limited size. For other mobile
devices, such as notebooks or net books, antennas
for MIMO operation with good performance are
much easier to design and integrate. Here, antennas
do not have to be printed on the circuit board but
can, for example, be placed around the screen or
through the casing of the device. The matter is
further complicated because each radio interface
has to support more than one frequency band and
possibly other radio technologies such as GSM,
UMTS and CDMA, which have their own
frequencies and bandwidths. The second
requirement that has to be fulfilled for MIMO
transmission is that the signals have to remain as
independent as possible on the transmission path
between the transmitter and the receiver. This can
be achieved if simultaneous transmissions reach the
mobile device via several independent paths. This
is possible even in environments where no direct
line of sight exists between the transmitter and the
receiver [8].
5. LTE Network Architecture
System Architecture Evolution (SAE) is the
evolution associated with the core network along
with the radio access technology, indicated as LTE.
SAE was developed to satisfy the requirements of
LTE and provide improved data capacity, reduced
latency and cost (capital expenditure and
operational expenditure), and support for packet
switch configuration. Hence LTE architecture
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consists of two main parts: EUTRAN (EUTRA
Node) and EPC (Evolved Packet Core). These two
nodes together comprise an Evolved Packet System
(EPS). EPS routes the IP packet with a given
Quality of Service (QoS), called an EPS bearer,
from the Packet Data Network Gateway (P-GW) to
User Equipment (UE) [9].
6. Multiple Antenna Techniques
Generally, multiple antenna techniques utilize
multiple antennas at the transmitter or/and receiver
in combination with adaptive signal processing to
provide smart array processing, diversity
combining or spatial multiplexing capability of
wireless system [10, 11]. Previously, in
conventional signal antenna systems the exploited
dimensions are only time and frequency whereas
multiple antenna systems exploit an additional
spatial dimension. The utilization of spatial
dimension with multiple antenna techniques fulfils
the requirements of LTE; improved coverage
(possibility for larger cells), improved system
capacity (more user/cell), QoS and targeted date
rates are attained by using multiple antenna
techniques as described in [12]. Multiple antenna
techniques are the integrated part of LTE
specifications because some requirements such as
user peak data rates cannot be achieved without the
utilization of multiple antenna schemes.
The radio link is influenced by the multipath fading
phenomena due to constructive and destructive
interferences at the receiver. By applying multiple
antennas at the transmitter or at the receiver,
multiple radio paths are established between each
transmitting and receiving antenna. In this way
dissimilar paths will experience uncorrelated
fading. To have uncorrelated fading paths, the
relative location of antennas in the multiple antenna
configurations should be distant from each other.
Alternatively, for correlated fading (instantaneous
fading) antenna arrays are closely separated.
Whether uncorrelated fading or correlated fading is
required depends on what is to be attained with the
multiple antenna configurations (diversity,
beam‐forming, or spatial multiplexing) [10].
Generally, multiple antenna techniques can be
divided into three categories (schemes) depending
on their different benefits; spatial diversity,
beam‐forming and spatial multiplexing which will
be discussed further in the following sections.
7. Simulation Design: LTE Downlink
The 3GPP LTE simulates the Downlink
communication from one Evolved Universal
Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN)
also known as eNodeB, to one User Equipment
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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
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(UE) using a Channel and the Uplink
communication from the UE to the eNodeB [13].
There are four main parts of the simulator:
Transmitter (eNodeB), Channel, Receiver (UE) and
finally the Outputs are calculated in one part. The
LTE simulator is mainly modeled in the physical
layer. In terms of physical channel, the simulator
focuses on the Physical Downlink Shared Channel
(PDSCH) and Uplink (PUSCH). Moreover, the
simulator operates in terms of sub-frames, i.e. the
generation and transmission of signals are in the
form of sub-frames [13].
7.1 MIMO Transmission
MIMO technology involves the use of multiple
antennas at the transmitter, receiver or both as in
the case of 1x1, 1x2, 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 which are
currently supported in LTE but 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4
are used in this thesis. MIMO has different antenna
techniques and two (2) of them are also used in this
work and are currently supported by LTE simulator
namely: Transmit Diversity and Spatial
Multiplexing [14].
7.2 Transmit Diversity
Transmit Diversity is common in Downlink of
Cellular Systems, because it is cheaper and easy to
install multiple antennas at the base station than to
install or put multiple antennas in every handheld
device. In Transmit Diversity, to tackle or scrap
fast fading and to achieve reasonable gain in fast
signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR), the receiver is being
provided with multiple copies of the transmitted
signal. Therefore, TD is applied to have extended
converge and better link quality when the users
experience terrible channel conditions, in other
words, this explains that TD has to do with
improving system performance [14].
7.3 Spatial Multiplexing
Spatial Multiplexing is the use of multiple antennas
at both the transmitter and the receiver and can
benefit from multipath fading to provide additional
diversity and to improve SNR compared to SISO
systems. This advantage of multiple antennas can
be used to provide higher data rates by efficient
utilisation of SNR over the air interface. Spatial
Multiplexing can provide substantial increase in
data rates by transmitting different data streams
over different parallel channels provided by the
multiple transmit and receive antennas, while using
the same bandwidth and with no additional power
expenditure. In MIMO systems, increase in
capacity is linearly related to the number of the
transmit/receive antenna pair. In other words, SM
has to do with improving capacity as in more users
per cell [14].
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8. Analysis of Results
The performance metric under consideration is the
Bit Error Rate (BER). The Signal Noise to Ratio
(SNR) is swept from 0dB to 21dB in eight (8)
steps. The Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)
Techniques used in thıs simulation are Transmit
Diversity (TD) and Spatial Multiplexing (SM). The
BER simulations are performed for three different
modulation types which are: QPSK, 16QAM and
64QAM in ITU channel environment which is ITU
Extended Vehicular A (EVA) with delay and
power values.
8.1 ITU Extended Vehicular A (EVA)
The Simulation Results are shown for 2x2, 4x2 and
4x4 MIMO using 10MHz bandwidth and MIMO
techniques; Transmit Diversity and Spatial
Multiplexing in ITU Extended Vehicular-A (EVA)
with modulation schemes of QPSK, 16QAM and
64QAM. The parameters adopted are from 3GPP
specifications.
8.1.1 Spatial Multiplexing QPSK 10MHz 2x2,
4 x2 &4Spatial
x4 Multiplexing
EVA. QPSK 10MHz 2x2, 4x2 & 4x4 EVA
7E-1
2x2
4x2
BER
1E-1
4x4
1E-2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
SNR
Fig 1: 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 using QPSK with SM.
In Fig 1, the performance metric under
consideration is the Bit Error Rate (BER) and from
the results shown are for 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 MIMO
and it can be observe that 4x4 outperforms 4x2 and
2x2 at low BER value of 2.72 x 10-1 as compared to
3.79 x 10-1 and 3.88 x 10-1 for 4x2 and 2x2
respectively, though 2x2 and 4x2 will experience
low error rates at high SNR. It is important to take
note of the typical performance of 4x4 by
observing the relatively wide gap between the 4x4
curve and that of 4x2 and 2x2. It is suggested that
4x4 be used when channel conditions deteriorates
or in a scenario where the signal is bound to
experience fading and distortions and 2x2 and 4x2
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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org Spatial Multiplexing 64QAM 10MHz 2x2, 4x2 & 4x4 EVA

be used when channel conditions are normal and 8E-1

stable 2x2

8.1.2 Spatial
Spatial Multiplexing
Multiplexing 16QAM
16QAM 10MHz 2x2, 4x2 & 10MHz
4x4 EVA
2x2, 4x2 & 4x4 EVA 4x2

BER
1E-1
8E-1 4x4
2x2

4x2
1E-2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
4x4 SNR
BER

1E-1
Fig 3: 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 using 64QAM with SM.

This result is expected using 64QAM, as noise

1E-2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
SNR
Fig 2: 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 using 16QAM with SM.
As shown in Fig 2, with same parameters adopted
and as shown in Table 4.3, 4x4 performs best at
low BER of 3.54 x 10-1 up until the 13dB SNR
mark where 4x2 exhibits gradually a better and
lower BER value of 1.67 x 10-1 compared to 1.83 x
10-1 and 2.28 x 10-1 for 4x4 and 2x2 respectively
and also at SNR 20 – 21dB, 4x4 shows a high BER
value of 1.32 x 10-1 as compared to 8.8 x 10-2 and
3.8 x 10-2 for 2x2 and 4x2 respectively. It is also
required that higher SNR and BER values are
obtained in 16QAM than in the preceding QPSK
and this can be attributed to the additional
modulation i.e. 4 bits per symbol which helps
increase data rate.
tolerance increases when higher modulation is used
as 64QAM has 6 bits per symbol. It is clearly
obvious that when there is need for transmitting
more bits, extra SNR is required and 4x4 shows
this where at 6dB SNR the BER value is 3.76 x 10-1
20 22 compared to 4x4 in QPSK and 16QAM where at
6dB the BER value is 1.78 x 10 -1 and 2.94 x 10-1
respectively. It can be observed that at 7 – 8dB and
15dB, 4x4 has BER values of 3.54 x 10 -1 and 3.06
x 10-1 as compared to 4x2 at 7 – 8dB which has a
BER of 3.47 x 10-1 and 2x2 at 15dB which has a
BER of 3.04 x 10-1. In this case, 4x4 tends to
perform better both in bad and stable channel
conditions.
8.1.4 Transmit Diversity QPSK 10MHz 2x2,
4x2 & 4 x4 EVA
Transmit Diversity QPSK 10MHz 2x2, 4x2 & 4x4 EVA
3E1
1E1
1
2X2
1E-1 4X2
BER

8.1.3 Spatial Multiplexing 64QAM 10MHz 1E-2 4X4

2x2, 4x2 & 4 x4 EVA
1E-3

1E-4

1E-5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

SNR

Fig 4: 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 using QPSK with TD.

In Transmit Diversity (TD), it is always required to

have low BER values as the SNR value increases

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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org Transmit Diversity 64QAM 10MHz 2x2, 4x2 & 4x4 EVA

compared to Spatial Multiplexing. It can be 3E0

observed that 2x2 and 4x4 tends to overlap because
1
of the antenna configuration as compared to 4x2 2x2
which has so much load because of the 4 transmit
antenna sending to just 2 receive antennas. At 0dB, 1E-1
2x2 has a ber value of 1.1x10-1, 1.09 x 10-1 and
1.89 x 10-1 for 4x4 and 4x2 respectively but at 3dB
1E-2 4x2

BER
changes were observed with 2x2 having BER
values of 1 x 10-2, 1.1 x10-2 and 6.3 x 10-2 for 4x4
and 4x2 respectively. 1E-3
4x4
8.1.5 Transmit Diversity 16QAM 10MHz 2x2,
1E-4
4x2 &Transmit
4 x4Diversity
EVA16QAM 10MHz 2x2, 4x2 & 4x4 EVA

1E-5
3E0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
1
2x2 SNR
Fig 6: 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 using 64QAM with TD.
1E-1
4x2 It is expected using 64QAM, as noise tolerance is
1E-2 lower when higher modulation is used because of
BER

the increase in bits per symbol which is 6 bits in

4x4 this case. Here at 0dB, 2x2 slightly surpass 4x2 and
1E-3 4x4 with BER values of 3.47 x 10-1, 3.63 x 10-1 and
3.59 x 10-1 respectively but at 14 = 15dB the gap
1E-4
tends to widen with 2x2 having a BER of 2.711 x
10-6 compared to 1.3 x 10-2 and 2 x 10-3 for 4x2 and
4x4 respectively.
1E-5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 According to the results shown, it can be observed
that 4x4 has the lowest BER values at the initial
SNR stage in TD and SM and tends to increase at a later
Fig 5: 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 using 16QAM with TD. stage as the SNR increases while 4x2 has low BER
values at higher SNR in most cases like in 16QAM
and 64QAM SM EVA and 2x2 is always in
Higher SNR and BER values are obtained in between in all cases.
16QAM than in the preceding QPSK due to the
additional modulation. It is shown here as 4x4 has
the BER value and 4x2 has the highest. At 6dB, 9. Conclusion
2x2 has a BER value of 6.9 x 10-2, 4x2 has BER
value of 1.44 x 10-1 while 4x4 is 2 x 10-3. In this work, an effective study, analysis and
evaluation of the LTE downlink performance with
MIMO techniques: Spatial Multiplexing and
Transmit Diversity in 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 antenna
8.1.6 Transmit Diversity 64QAM 10MHz 2x2, configurations was carried out. The performance is
4x2 & 4 x4 EVA. evaluated using the Bit-Error-Rate (BER) metric,
considering the use of ITU channel model
environment: Extended Vehicular-A (EVA). In
both receivers, for higher order of modulation
(16QAM and 64QAM), the EVA channel
performed better for the low SNR regions, though
in some scenarios and antennas like in 4x2, and
also in terms of performance, transmit diversity
performed better while in terms of capacity, spatial
multiplexing performed better. In rich multipath
environments, performance for users far away from
the base station is low due to losses caused by the
presence of many scatters, but for the EVA

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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
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channel, performance is better in these low SNR
areas, however, additional SNR is required in the
higher order of modulation. Analysis of the results
obtained reveal that the performance of MIMO is
excellent in the channel model. Spatial
multiplexing is ideal for achieving very high peak
rates, while transmit diversity is a valuable scheme
to minimize the rate of bit error occurrence thereby
improving signal quality. The vision of LTE is
therefore nothing less than an actual possibility for
now as the simulation carried out is not concluding,
though this evaluation has demonstrated that the
design goals and targets of LTE can be met with
some degree of reliability. This performance
evaluation also provides useful information on LTE
downlink planning, design and optimization for
deployment. This study was performed for single
user MIMO scenario. However, the real traffic is a
mix of different users in a cell, therefore, it is
essential to undertake studies with multi user
MIMO as well.
[10] 3G Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, Johan
Sköld and Per Beming, 3G Evolution: HSPA and
LTE for Mobile Broadband, Elsevier Ltd 2007.
[11] A. A. Salwa Ali, S Thiagarajah, “A Review on
MIMO Antennas Employing Diversity Techniques,”
Proceedings of the International Conference on
Electrical Engineering and Informatics Institute
Technology Bandung, Indonesia June 17 - 19, 2007.
[12] 3GPP, TR 25.913 V 8.0.0, “Requirements for
Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA) and Evolved UTRAN (E-
UTRAN),” Release 8, December 2008.
[13] 3GPP TS 36.211 v8.4.0, "Physical Channels
and Modulation", Sept. 2008
[14] Rohde and Schwarz: “LTE Technology basics”
CG and AR, May 2009.

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge the immeasurable contributions

of Dr Mehmet Toycan of Management Information
Systems Department, Cyprus International
University, Nicosia, TRNC to the original Project.

References
[1]3GPP, TR 25.913 V2.0.0, “Requirements for
Evolved UTRA and Evolved UTRAN,” Release 7,
2005.
[2]3GPP, Release 8 V0.0.3, “Overview of 3GPP
Release 8: Summary of all Release 8 Features,”
November 2008.
[3]Stefania Sesia, Matthew Baker, and Issam Toufik,
LTE–the UMTS Long Term Evolution: From Theory
to Practice, John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2009.
[4]Matiae, D., “OFDM as a Possible Modulation
Technique for Multimedia Applications in the Range
of Multimedia Waves”, 1998.
[5]3GPP TS 25.913 v7.3.0; Requirements for E-UTRA
AND E-UTRAN (Rel. 7).
[6]LTE for UMTS: OFDMA and SC-FDMA Based
Radio Access Edited by Harri Holma and Antti
Toskala, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2009.
[7]Agilent Technologies “LTE and the Evolution to 4G
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[8] M, Sauter. From GSM to LTE: An Introduction
to Mobile Networks and Mobile Broadband. John
Wiley & Sons, 2011.
[9]3GPP TS 36.300, ―Evolved Universal Terrestrial
Radio Access (EUTRA); Overall Description
(Release 8).

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